He had gone through the opening, and, turning round so as to
face me, he naturally could see something that I did _not_ see.
'Look behind!' he called out rapidly. I did so, and saw the murderous
villain Manasseh with his arm uplifted, and in the act of cutting at my
wife, nearly insensible as she was, with a cutlass. The blow was not
for me, but for her, as the fugitive prisoner; and the law would have
borne him out in the act. I saw, I comprehended the whole. I groped, as
far as I could without letting my wife drop, for my pistols; but all
that I could do would have been unavailing, and too late--she would
have been murdered in my arms. But--and that was what none of us saw--
neither I, nor Pierpoint, nor the hound Manasseh--one person stood
back in the shade; one person had seen, but had not uttered a word on
seeing Manasseh advancing through the shades; one person only had
forecast the exact succession of all that was coming; me she saw
embarrassed and my hands preoccupied--Pierpoint and Ratcliffe useless
by position--and the gleam of the dog's eye directed her to his aim.
The crow-bar was leaning against the shattered wall. This she had
silently seized. One blow knocked up the sword; a second laid the
villain prostrate.
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